Author

Neena Imam is the inaugural Director of the O’Donnell Data Science and Research Computing Institute (DSRCI) at Southern Methodist University (SMU), a position key to the university’s commitment to data-focused education and next-gen computational research. The DSRCI also serves as the gateway to SMU’s HPC environment. Before joining SMU, Neena Imam served as the Director of Strategic Researcher Engagement at NVIDIA corporation, the industry-leader in GPU computing and AI/ML research. In this role, Neena worked with academic researchers to enable GPU-accelerated and AI/ML applications development. Before NVIDIA, Neena served as a distinguished scientist and the Director of Research Collaboration in the Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). At ORNL, Neena performed research in HPC, as well as next-generation microelectronics and Post Moore computing. Neena is the author/co-author of many scientific articles, served as an invited speaker and panelist at many conferences, and is active in professional organizations to promote research and education in HPC and AI.

Neena holds a Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, with Master's and Bachelor's degrees in the same field from Case Western Reserve University and California Institute of Technology, respectively. Neena also served as the Science and Technology Fellow for Senator Lamar Alexander in Washington D.C. (2010-2012). Neena assisted the senator in the reauthorization of the America COMPTES Act intended to promote U. S. competitiveness in STEM fields. Neena also assisted in the introduction of the first exascale computing legislation (S. 3459). Neena is a senior member of IEEE, served as an IEEE officer for multiple years, and is the founding Chair of ACM SIGHPC ASCAN (Accelerated Scalable Computing and ANalytics) chapter.